Hi,
I just updated to Version 10.3.2412 (260ec1e) on MacOS Sequoia and the ‘Show as’ option for a Calendar event no longer includes ‘Out of Office’. Is this a deliberate change or a bug?
I just updated to Version 10.3.2412 (260ec1e) on MacOS Sequoia and the ‘Show as’ option for a Calendar event no longer includes ‘Out of Office’.
I never knew you could setup Out of Office replies “within the calendar event itself”. But if you could before, then no doubt that will be fixed or someone will reply in this thread on that.
Out off Office (automatic reply’s) are normally setup via the “Tools” menu as in the eM Client documentation example below
(Automatic Replies)
Quote: - “Automatic replies, also called Vacation responder or Out of office messages is a feature which enables you to set a message which will be automatically sent as a reply to any received email within a set timeframe”.
“This feature can be accessed in Menu > Tools > Automatic replies”.
The feature you describe is an automatic response to a received email to notify the sender of my out of office status - an email feature. That is not the feature I am referring to, which is a Calendar feature.
In previous releases of EM Client, when creating a new event, one of the options was “Show as”. The options offered in the pull-down menu were ‘Free/Busy/Tentative/Out of office’. This setting controlled the Event background in Calender view (in Day, Work Week, Week, Upcoming or Month view). It provides an instant visual indication without having to open the Event.
Pleease see https://www.emclient.com/release-history?os=mac and view the description of Release 10.3.1524.0. It clearly explains the feature.
This has disappeared in the latest version. Only the options ‘Busy/Free’ are offered. Events created in the earlier release retain their original status and indicative background, but this is lost when opening (for editing, or viewing more detail about) the Event in this latest release.
However once an Event has been created it can still be edited in any Calendar view via ‘Right-click/Show as’.
I am assuming this change was not deliberate.
In previous releases of EM Client, when creating a new event, one of the options was “Show as”. The options offered in the pull-down menu were ‘Free/Busy/Tentative/Out of office’. This setting controlled the Event background in Calendar view (in Day, Work Week, Week, Upcoming or Month view). It provides an instant visual indication without having to open the Event.
Yes I checked the online documentation on creating events and yes you are correct “it should have Free/Busy/Tentative/Out of office in the Show As” dropdown as per the manual below “and is missing” in the latest Mac and Windows V10.3.2412
@Olivia_Rust are you aware of this issue ?
I tested eM Client Windows V10.3.1738 and “it has all those options” so appears it was removed after that which does look like a bug.
We did not remove this option, but with synchronized calendars the offered options can also depend on the provider of the calendar itself.
So with a standard CalDAV account you will see all 4 states (Free/Busy/Tentative/Out of Office) but for example Google Calendar only supports Free and Busy states, so trying to set a different one would not make sense because this status cannot be synchronized to the server.
Event on a CalDAV calendar:
Trying to save the same even on Gmail:
So has perhaps a different calendar been selected in the left pane than before?
We did not remove this option, but with synchronized calendars the offered options can also depend on the provider of the calendar itself.
Google Calendar only supports Free and Busy states, so trying to set a different one would not make sense because this status cannot be synchronized to the server.
Those options “do appear in my “Gmail account calendar” event” in V10.3.1738 as I advised above in my post when I just tested it but not in the latest version V10.3.2412 using the same Gmail account calendar.
So sounds then like Google has changed at the server end sometime recently which then no longer shows those Tentative/Out of Office in the later eM Client versions. Very strange.
@cyberzork Thank you for the additional details, I’ll check with the devs and try to find out how this might have changed.
But the Google calendar in web interface does support only those 2 states:
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Yes I see to Google are now only showing Free and Busy online as you said so does sound like Google Servers have changed recently. So all good.
@cyberzork Ok, I apologize for the mixup, I thought we already shown only the options supported by the server provider, but until now that was only for tasks and not events.
Version 10.3.2412 indeed expands this for the mentioned event status, which was overlooked in previous updates.
But this change will only affect those using Google Calendar, which (as shown in the screenshot earlier) knows only Free and Busy status (so other option would not be synchronized to server or other devices anyway).
Other calendar protocols (Exchange and CalDAV) support the standard four.
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I am sorry but that is not my experience.
I use Google Calendar and the EM Client Out of Office and Tentative options worked with Google Calendar right up until I upgraded to the latest EM client version 2 days ago. Events in my Calendar which were created before the upgrade, with Out of Office or Tentative ‘Show as’ set, appear as normal in Google Calendar and they survived a ‘Refersh’ action, showing on Google Calendar as ‘Free’.
If your conclusion is correct then why are all 4 ‘Show as’ options offered when right-clicking an Event in Calendar view? I can create a new Event in EM Client, set the ‘Show as’ status as Free, then right click it in Calendar view and set it to Out of office. This change survives a Google Calendar ‘Refresh’, it is shown as ‘Free’ in Google Calendar but remains Out of Office in EM Client.
I don’t believe Google made changes to their Calendar at precisely the same time as I upgraded EM Client.
So it would appear there have been no changes to EM Client features but acccessing this feature has changed (for the worse). The 4 EM Client ‘Show as’ options still exist and perform with Google Calendar in just the same way, but the options are missing from the Event window.
I can create a new Event in EM Client, set the ‘Show as’ status as Free, then right click it in Calendar view and set it to Out of office. This change survives a Google Calendar ‘Refresh’, it is shown as ‘Free’ in Google Calendar but remains Out of Office in EM Client.
I suspect the “right click event” Tentative and Out of Office options for a Google Calendar account in eM Client just eg: “haven’t been removed yet in the latest version for the Calendar section” and will be removed in a future update as Google don’t appear to support those other options currently as Olivia advised in her Google Calendar Screenshot.
Yep, this is definitely a mistake, we’ll remove it from the right-click menu in future updates.
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Hi Andrew, I already admitted in my following reply that I mixed up the previous behavior with tasks, so yes, the change for calendar is new (but for the same reason we changed the tasks - to show only the options that can be synchronized with the service provider), and the right-click menu option will be fixed in following updates.
Nothing on Google has changed and I never claimed it did (I just assumed a different calendar account might have been selected. but that was part of the mixup I mentioned above).
Based on your own description the status stays as Free on server after you change it to Out of Office - the status is not synchronized outside your own local eM Client data, so it is not very useful to keep it, since someone who might need to know you’re out of office will never see this status.
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I can see the significance of what you say, it’s sensible for those who share their EM Client Calendar with others, perhaps in a business environment. But as a sole trader I use EM Client on MacOs and iPhone Calendar. I don’t use Google Calendar to view Calendar. EM Client is where I plan my Calendar and create events. I use the iPhone as a view-only app where ‘Show as’ categorisation is not required. Out of Office is a valuable immediate indication on EM Client. Even if it? doesn’t sync with Google why remove something that’s already there and working? It would do no harm to leave it in.
It’s confusing to leave them there as “other eM Client Google Calendar users will think it does does sync online” where those other options don’t sync online, so agree 100% with Olivia that they should be removed to avoid confusion.
Ps If Google one day implement those two options at their end like CalDav, then eM Client will no doubt add them again.